3 Cool Things You Can Do With IFTTT

IFTTT, which stands for "If This Then That," is a service that helps you automate many common tasks by connecting the apps you use the most. Once I discovered IFTTT, I eliminated many boring tasks that took up a lot of my time at work and home.

Using IFTTT is a simple and straightforward process. I choose the trigger action app from the list and define what action IFTTT should look for. The next step is telling the service what to do in another app when it detects this activity. It only takes a minute to set each one up. Here are three of my favorites to get you started.

First Recipe

IFTTT can connect your Twitter to your Evernote account. Since I use Twitter to find useful information, I often favorite tweets to go back and look at this information later. With the IFTTT applet, I can save all of my favorited tweets to my Evernote account. I don’t need to worry about digging through my Twitter account manually to try and find them. Instead, I get to use Evernote’s robust advanced search features to reference tweets that are worth saving.

Second Recipe

I connect Internet of Things devices together. For example, if my Nest thermostat determines that I’m away from my house, I can use IFTTT to turn off my Philips Hue light bulbs. Since IoT devices rarely share the same platform, this is one way I can integrate smart home technology from different brands. I want to pick the best product for the job, rather than trying to spend hours researching whether two brands have integration options built in.

Third Recipe

I connect my Gmail to Trello. I assign a particular label to incoming emails in Gmail, such as messages dealing with new projects, and IFTTT tells Trello to automatically create a Trello board or a new task in an existing project.

IFTTT might sound complicated at first, but it saves me so much time every day. It’s the next best thing to a time travel machine that could add a few more hours to the clock.